Page 301 - Understanding Psychology

memories are repressed because of the emotional traumas of infancy. Others believe that because infants do not yet understand language, their memories are nonverbal, whereas later memo- ries are verbal (once language is learned). Still others claim that the hippocampus may not be mature enough in infancy to spark memories or that infants have not yet developed a sense
of self to experience memories.
IMPROVING MEMORY
Techniques for improving memory are based on efficient organization of the things you learn and on chunking information into easily handled packages.
Meaningfulness and Association
As we discussed earlier, using repetition, or
maintenance rehearsal, can help you remember for
a short period of time. In this method, words are
merely repeated with no attempt to find meaning. A
more efficient way of remembering new information
involves elaborative rehearsal. In this method, you
relate the new information to what you already know. The
more meaningful something is, the easier it will be to remem-
ber. For example, you would be more likely to remember the six letters DFIRNE if they were arranged to form the word FRIEND.
Similarly, you remember things more vividly if you associate them with things already stored in memory or with a strong emotional experi- ence. The more categories a memory is indexed under, the more accessi- ble it is. If an input is analyzed and indexed under many categories, each association can serve as a trigger for the memory. If you associate the new information with strong sensory experiences and a variety of other mem- ories, any of these stimuli can trigger the memory. The more senses and experiences you use when trying to memorize something, the more likely it is that you will be able to retrieve it—a key to improving memory.
For similar reasons, a good way to protect a memory from interfer- ence is to overlearn it—to keep on rehearsing it even after you think you know it well. Another way to prevent interference while learning new material is to avoid studying similar material together. Instead of studying history right after political science, study biology in between. Still another method is to space out your learning. Trying to absorb large amounts of information at one sitting results in a great deal of interference. It is far more effective to study a little at a time—called distributed practice.
In addition, how you originally learn or remember something influ- ences how readily you recall that information later. If a bit of information is associated with a highly emotional event or if you learned this bit of
Can you improve your memory?
At one time or another we have all had to memorize items—a list of facts, telephone numbers, or a dialogue in a play. Are there ways to improve these memorization tasks?
Procedure
1. Give several friends and classmates the following list of numbers to memorize: 6, 9, 8, 11, 10, 13, 12, 15, 14, 17, 16, etc.
2. Tell some people to simply memorize the number sequence.
3. Tell others that there is an organizational principle behind the number sequence (which they are to discover) and to memo- rize the numbers with the aid of this princi- ple. (The principle here is “plus 3, minus 1.”)
Analysis
1. Which group was better at remembering the number sequence? Why do you think this is so? Write a brief analysis.
See the Skills
Handbook, page 622, for an explanation of designing
an experiment.
elaborative rehearsal: the linking of new information to material that is already known
Chapter 10 / Memory and Thought 287